In This Corrupt Kingdom
by Animegirl257
Summary: One-Shot. The Uranet Lord isn't someone Forte can accept as powerful. And one day, he'll prove that power false and crush it. And that day...isn't today, sadly. He just wishes he could be left alone for once.


In This Corrupt Kingdom

Forte was…confused.

No, he wasn't confused. He was _baffled_. Baffled and not something as pathetic as confused, since he knew exactly what his problem was, but he just couldn't figure out exactly how he'd come across such a…contradiction.

Yes, contradiction was a good word for her, he realized, staring blankly into the seemingly bottomless cavern before him. Even though it didn't do justice to the sheer headache she brought on just by existing, contradiction still fit. She shouldn't exist.

The Undernet, or Uranet as the fools who inhabited it insisted on calling it, was a very secretive place. Not much was known about it to the rest of the Net, and the place was a surprisingly tight-knit community that didn't tolerate outsiders. They may have been criminals and low lives, but they were _very_ good at fighting dirty and overwhelming their enemies, so the NetPolice hadn't exactly had much success in any of their attempted raids. To make matters worse for any form of law enforcement, several powerful and ruthless Navis called the Uranet home and guarded its borders jealously. If it weren't for the ridiculously powerful 'Rankers', the Uranet would have slowly but surely been retaken by officials.

The Rankers were Navis that Forte could…well, not respect, but at least acknowledge as powerful. They tended to keep to themselves and constantly squabbled over their petty ranks, but they also kept general order in the Uranet. Not only did they act as the guards of the Uranet, but many of the ten Navis had formed their own gangs of sorts, surrounding themselves with a loose group of followers that did their bidding in exchange for protection for when they inevitably stepped on someone's toes. It kept a tense peace in the Uranet that hadn't shattered out of fear of the consequences if Rankers ever picked sides.

There were also a few powerful outsiders who refused to take part in the raking game who were strong enough to be high-level Rankers, though only three worth mentioning. Forte himself was at the very top of the list and happily sat there, and he wouldn't dare lower himself to settle and become Ranker 2. Darkman was powerful but bland; obsessed with an absurd task the Uranet Lord had set out for him entirely to keep the battle-hungry Navi away, and hadn't ever expected it to be completed. The fact that he'd actually made significant progress on the ridiculously quest to defeat ten thousand Navis probably said more about Darkman than anything else he'd ever done. The third was a strange case of a SciLabs' strongest Navi going rogue for an absolutely idiotic reason that made Forte gag. Forte knew that Yamatoman didn't take part in the ranking competition because he looked down on the entire practice, which was rich coming from such a pathetic Navi who waited on the Ranker 1 hand and foot. If he didn't have his power, he would be even more of a sniveling lapdog of the Uranet Lord than he already was.

The Uranet Lord, however, was the worst Navi Forte had ever had the displeasure of meeting. He hadn't known much about the elusive Navi who never left the Uranet before he'd taken temporary shelter there, and the rumors he heard unreliable at best. One day the Uranet Lord was a terrifying ten foot tall Navi who shot lasers from his eyes and spat acid, and the next he was barely a foot tall and a parasite that devoured challengers like a while beast, bit by bit. All the information was certainly purposely contradictory and obviously false, almost surely to prevent anyone from learning of the Uranet Lord's powers and planning against them. He might not even be that strong, or even exist, but instead served as a boogieman to make the NetPolice question every step they took. So when Forte had managed to track down Ranker 1 and demanded a challenge, he was prepared for anything.

Except what he'd gotten.

"Forte, there you are!"

The voice was bright and cheery, as if mocking the dark and depressing barren world of the Uranet. Some might have thought the happy, distinctly girlish, voice was cute, but to him it simply dug into his skull, mocking him. Forte ignored it, hoping against all hopes that if he stayed still then she'd get bored and leave him alone. He had no such luck and a slim girl darted in front of him, arms filled with something black and fluffy.

She looked at him fearlessly, like he hadn't made a name for himself as an , smile wide and dark eyes practically shining. She was the definition of unintimidating, barely average height with hardly any armor except tiny shoulder pads that looked more astatic than anything, and bulky arm guards that were a gaudy shade of gold. The floating crescent raiments behind her might have drawn some attention, but otherwise she was unassuming and forgettable even with her darker skin and bright blond hair.

She proudly presented what Forte realized was a wolf-like virus nervous squirming in her arms and occasionally spitting weak wisps of fire. The black color was unusual, because he could have sworn…"Forte, look what I found! It's a new kind of Spikey!"

"Garu."

She huffed, both in frustration and when she was forced to adjust her grip, least the extremely dangerous virus manage slip free and _flee_ , "Well I call them Spikies! But look, I've never seen a black one before, and I think he's even stronger than those Omega ones! I saw him bulling a bunch of other Spikies even though he's really small, and then I realized I've never seen a black one before, so I decided to show him to you! I think the black makes him look like you, right?"

The virus growled and snapped angrily at Forte's nose. It missed, pulled back by its captor, "No! No biting Forte's nose! Be good, ok, Winston?"

The virus whined and did its best to shrink back and away from her attention. Except that wasn't what she'd wanted, and the Navi started cooing over the virus, doing her best to try and coax it to be friendlier to her, to no avail.

Forte breathed in deeply, doing his best to remain clam. Only the woman before him would actually _want_ a virus, much less some new, probably dangerous, breed, to pay attention to her. She'd already named it probably minutes after snatching it from its hunting grounds. She was the only Navi who could wonder the Uranet badlands and not get swarmed by viruses, and she hated it for some reason! Well, actually the reason was rather clear, since most of the Uranet did its best to disassociate from its shame.

The Uranet Lord, Serenade, wasn't what Forte had expected.

She really wasn't who anyone had expected to come out on top, much less wanted to represent the supposed dark and gritty Uranet.

After he'd met her, suddenly the lack of real information on the Uranet Lord made sense. She was an embarrassment no one could get rid of, and they'd become the laughing stock of the Net if anyone found out what their absolute strongest was like. It didn't matter that she could crush any other Navi under her heel, she was just so…so-

"Wait, stop squirming, I'm not going to hurt you! Wait, no! Forte, catch Winston!"

Forte didn't even blink when the black virus leapt clean over his head, ignoring him entirely and fleeing as fast as it could. Serenade, knocked to the ground during the struggle, gaped at him in betrayal that he hadn't even attempted to stop her…pet from fleeing. As if he'd attack the one virus in this blasted place that _wasn't_ interested in attacking him.

"Why do they always run? It's not fair!"

The strongest Navi of the Uranet, possibly in all existence, crossed her arms and pouted.

-so childish! And showed no signs of suddenly maturing.

If he hadn't fought her and lost _terribly_ , Forte would have thought the entire thing was an extremely elaborate prank. But no, Serenade was impossibly strong, batting away his attacks with ease, and fast enough to slip through his defenses…to do nothing but tap his nose and say "Big boys shouldn't throw temper tantrums!" before darting away.

It went without saying that Forte hadn't taken that well, and the world trembled from his might. He flattened the landscape, multiplied the number of gashes marring the ground, and, after hours of failure, scored a clean hit that she hadn't been able to deflect. It'd knocked her light body out of the air, and Forte had brought and entire mountain down on her head. Confident he knew her trick- she wasn't that strong, she was just fast enough to not get hit –he'd unloaded over a dozen attacks point-blank in such quick succession it left him dizzy and reeling.

Serenade walked away with only a few scratches he could see _healing before his very eyes_ and Forte hadn't had anything left in him to fight with. She's looked over him, made sure he was ok, and even kept watch over him until he could stand to ward off any vultures who'd delete him out of spite. Even after he shoved her away, hit her with a surprise attack out of spite, she'd watched silently as he'd limped away.

From that day on, she followed and bothered him whenever she could.

After much thought, and seeing her, sulking because she couldn't have a pet like some sort of grade school _human_ , he was sure of it now. Her power wasn't natural, because she couldn't possibly be that strong and be this idiotic. Training took discipline and resolve she just simple didn't have. The viruses sensed it and ran from her when they'd mindlessly attack even him, and it'd explain why she was able to look so unassuming and yet be practically a force of nature herself. He suspected it'd had something to do with why she'd been chosen to guard the damaged Gigafreeze, though she didn't so much guard it as keep Navis from killing themselves by getting too close.

Forte planned to take the Gigafreeze for himself…someday. He wasn't an idiot and had seen a few frozen Navis, overwhelmed by the power and unable to do anything else but simply die. So he'd wait, build up his power until he was sure there wouldn't be any nasty side effects, and then take it.

Then he was sure he could finally destroy Serenade.

A weight suddenly crashed into him, tangling around him like a leech, "Forte~! Stop ignoring me, I've just lost my beloved Winston and you won't even try to cheer me up? You're so mean, you need to be nicer!"

But for now he'd have to put up with her antics. Absence did make the heart grow fonder, so at least Serenade's presence would make whatever silence and solitude he could find all the richer.

"There's no need to push, you could have just told me to get off…Wait, where are you going, Forte? Wait for me before you go somewhere, I want to come along! Are we going to do something fun? No wait, knowing you, it'll be something super cool, right? Can it be something fun _and_ cool? Pleeease?"

Whenever that was.

* * *

 **So, this was born from my inability to sit down a write Return to Alpha but the need to write** _ **something**_ **. This version of Serenade is obviously mine, along with the altered cannon I've made up that, while not overly important for this, you can see hinted here and there.**


End file.
